Reluctant Cuckold (7 page)

“I swear to God, Dave,” Ashley continued, “I felt so bad having to say goodbye to his sad little face.”

I just smiled.

“What do you say,” she added, “late tonight—you and me—we’ll sneak in there and rescue that little guy?”

“What, your Platypus friend? Steal him from the zoo?”

“He doesn’t want to be there. “

“And then what, as we have this thing in our cab?”

“We take him here. He would love this place. That room would work for him. We clear it out, throw down some hay, and give him a little basket for sleeping.”

Suddenly she looked at me inquisitively and asked, “Are you OK?”

“What? Yeah.”

“You seem really quiet … distracted.”

“Oh yeah, maybe I am—you know with work tomorrow—but I’m fine.”

She stood up, leaned over me, and began rubbing my shoulders. “You seem really tense, honey.”

“It’s just thinking about work.”

Then she came back to the sofa and started kissing me. Under normal circumstances, this would lead me to getting her clothes off and having sex. But I was nervous, self-conscious, awkward.

Monday was a new day.

And while I dread the weekly managers’ meeting that starts my workweek, I was anxious to get things started, thinking, bring it on.

I called Ashley right afterwards and suggested we go out to dinner, to a quiet little Italian place we discovered a few months back.

“I’ll reserve that corner nook we like.”

“Perfect.”

By six o’clock, I was high-tailing it down the elevator. Fifteen minutes later, I was buying wine, flowers and picking out a card.

Ashley met me there. We relaxed amidst the dim lighting and chill, background music. I felt vaguely nostalgic. The last time we’d eaten there was before the rumor, when everything had seemed so blue-sky certain.

But listening to her talk so animatedly, like nothing had changed, was soothing.

When we arrived home, I surprised her with the flowers. “They’re beautiful” she said, “I love them.”

Then I gave her the card as I poured her some wine.

“Happy Anniversary?” she asked puzzled, reading the card.

“Nineteen months today,” I said.

She looked at me oddly before reading my note aloud:

“Awww,” she said, “that’s so sweet, thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything. I feel like a heel.”

“I’ll get you back on our twentieth, OK?” she added, smiling, before giving me a kiss.

“I’m not setting some monthly precedent,” I replied, “I just thought of it this morning, when I was getting ready for work. How it was nineteen months ago today. I figured since I chickened out on the late-night kidnapping of the platypus, this might be a small gesture to make it up to you.”

“You’re not going to help me steal him?” she said, “Actually, it’s not stealing. It would be a rescue mission. If we left now, we could have him roaming around here in an hour.”

After our first glass of wine, we began making out on the couch.

I was putting the weirdness of Sunday behind me. I was trying to be thoughtful and demonstrative. I had wanted to make love to my wife all day. I was determined to make that happen now.

We quickly moved to the bedroom. I had her breasts in my hands, cupping them both, my tongue going from one nipple to the other. I was kissing her neck, massaging her back, sliding my hands on her ass, under her thong. When I felt Ashley getting wet, I held her hand and went down on her with gusto. My tongue was going slowly but enthusiastically up and down, licking her exquisite pussy, and she began to really moan. When she said “I want to feel you inside me,” I felt rock hard and more than ready.

Ashley’s been on the pill since right before we got married. I don’t even have condoms in my drawer anymore.

She put her hand on my dick and slid it inside her. “Yes,” she said as I drove it all the way in. Then I pulled back and drove it right back in again. On my third stroke, she cried out, “Oh God.”

Suddenly I thought of Jim Murta. Fucking her knowing I was outside. I felt as if I were in Jim Murta’s shoes, inside Ashley’s pussy. And that’s when Mayday warnings went off. I tried to pull out to get a grip, but there was no stopping it.

I suddenly came. Within a half-minute, before we had barely even started.

“Did you just—?”

“Yeah, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I think it’s ’cause you’re looking so sexy, and it’s been like a week, I couldn’t control myself.”

“It’s OK, honey,” she said, “it’s fine.”

“I love you, Ashley,” I said.

“I love you, too.”

In the bathroom, alone afterwards, I was unsteady. I was embarrassed by how quickly I’d cum. But I knew what thoughts had triggered it. They had crept back from yesterday and pulled that fire alarm.

I had just prematurely ejaculated inside Ashley. She hadn’t even come close to orgasm. Here I’d set this up as a night of significance, and when the penultimate moment finally arrived, I was three quick pumps and done.

We didn’t bring it up afterwards.

I just knew I couldn’t let that happen again.

The next afternoon I was planning on making Ashley dinner—and initiating sex again—to stamp out last night’s memory. But then she called me.

She was going out with Tamara for drinks.

I felt crushed. Especially hearing Tamara’s name, but I did my best to sound normal. To sound not phased in the slightest. “OK, so I’ll see you later tonight—have fun.”

I paced my office, feeling slightly ill. Ashley and Tamara go out together a few times a month. This wasn’t unusual. It had never bothered me before, but now I had reason to be bothered. This was the girl who had basically offered my wife up to Jim Murta.

It wasn’t until I got home that I really had a chance to think about it. I pictured the two of them sitting at a table, ordering designer cocktails, and dishing about the last couple weeks.

Obviously they would be talking about the “rumor.” How could they not? They both had starring roles in it. It’s possible Tamara was embarrassed, but I doubted it. She was single and hadn’t been the one getting fucked. Sure, she had been provocative, but that was her personality. While she probably tones it down at work, people would already have that perception of her.

I assumed she did feel bad for Ashley, and how the story had spread like wildfire around the office. But I could also see her taking satisfaction from it. Tamara had gotten Ashley to stray, from the husband she’s never liked. She had gotten Ashley to spread her pussy and take another man’s cock, with her husband right outside. She might have been nervous hearing my voice when I first knocked —afraid my knocking might derail whatever had started. But when she realized it hadn’t, she must have relished sending me upstairs. Had she included my name, just to make sure Jim Murta knew exactly who was being relegated upstairs?

What nerve Tamara had inviting him in. And what gall to tell him to pull out his cock in front of my wife, utterly dismissing me, my feelings, our marriage, asking him, “Which one of us do you want to fuck?”

I pictured Ashley and Tamara sitting at the bar. Ashley would be telling her what she had said to me last week.

“So he hadn’t heard?” Tamara would ask.

“No,” Ashley would say. “When I realized he hadn’t, I downplayed it like it was nothing.”

How much did Ashley confide in Tamara? Girls talk. Had Ashley talked to her about our sex life before? Told her explicit things? Expressed dissatisfaction?

Tamara was probably more aware of how happy or unhappy my wife was in our marriage than I was. She was no doubt privy to things about Ashley that I was not. Could Ashley be telling her about our sex the prior night?

“How premature is ‘premature’?” Tamara would ask.

“Um, I don’t know” Ashley might tell her, “about thirty seconds.”

Tamara would burst out laughing.

I took out the photo album and found a photo of Tamara from Halloween. She leaned into the camera, a flirtatious, mischievous smile on her face as it captured her cleavage.

What a fool that girl had made of me that night! Sending me, the husband, away, so my wife could get fucked. And now my wife was having drinks with this girl.

Tamara knew all about that night. She had been there, watching everything. She knew exactly what was happening when I knocked on that door. She knew if Ashley had sucked his cock.

Had she rooted Jim on as he fucked my wife?

Goddamn Tamara, were you cheerleading it?

I unbelted my pants and pulled out my dick. I shook my head, telling myself I shouldn’t be doing this. But I also thought that if I jerked off now, it might ensure full stamina later tonight—when Ashley came home.

Fuck it
, I thought, and began stroking.

Was his cock in Ashley’s mouth when I’d knocked? They’d stay motionless for a moment, Jim’s hand on Ashley’s hair, his cock in her mouth. Perhaps Jim had shoved it in even farther and held it there at the sound of my voice. Then Tamara had shooed me upstairs, and he’d given her the green light to go back to sucking—sucking the cock that was about to fuck her.

I looked at Tamara in the photo, picturing what she was saying as she urged him on: “Go for it Ashley, don’t worry, I sent clueless Dave upstairs. Oh yeah, ride that cock Ashley—you’re getting good and fucked now, girl.”

I looked at Tamara in the photo and then at Ashley beside her, and I came hard, looking at my wife.

I felt dumb and embarrassed in the moments afterwards, sitting there with my pants down. I cleaned up and put the photo book away. I thought,
what the fuck was that again
, but I didn’t want to dwell on it.

There were more important things.

I began wondering if Ashley was still interested in Jim Murta. Had they been together since? What kind of impression had that night left on her? Could Jim Murta possibly be out with her tonight? Had Jim Murta been a better fuck than me? Was Ashley comparing me to him? I knew last night had been a disaster, but had she been comparing him to me before all this?

Did he have a bigger cock?

Suddenly, that last question had me reeling. I had never felt I was small. My dick did the job. It passed the pass-fail test.

A friend used to tell me he was a “standard six.” The only bragging was in his honesty. He was confident enough to state it. It was reassuring to me as well. After all, I was average, or at least close—a solid five and a half, anyway.

But I began to wonder, was Jim Murta bigger? Could Ashley have even told him that? When he pulled it out and stroked it in front of her, did she remark on its size?

Like “Oh my God, wow!”

“Bigger than your husband’s, Ashley?”

Good God, I told myself, stop driving yourself crazy.

And so I started making some dinner. I made extra in case Ashley was hungry when she came home.

I realized I needed to have a talk with her about this rumor. I’d have to position it delicately, in an understanding, non-accusatory way. But, I couldn’t continue to sweep it under the rug. I needed to get a sense of where her head was.

Was she still interested in Jim Murta? Was she not happy in our marriage? I needed answers.

I’d call Craig in the morning. I could at least ask if any sort of relationship seemed to be happening between them. He couldn’t begrudge me that.

Ashley was a little buzzed when she arrived home.

“So Tamara was pitching me on going to Burning Man for Labor Day,” she said, as she sat down. “You know what that is, right?”

“Yeah” I said, “I’ve heard of it.”

“She wants to rent an RV for a week and was gung-ho’ing me on it.”

“Is she serious about actually going?”

“She talked like she was. She wanted to go last year.”

“It’s where—Nevada?”

“Yeah, exactly, three hours outside of Reno.”

“Isn’t it just a big rave-type event in the desert like some Nuevo-hippie group love-in?”

“No,” Ashley said dismissively. “It’s this whole community, built out of nothing. It’s all about self-expression and self-reliance. Tamara’s trying to marshal up a crew, and wants to build this artsy lounge for people to chill in.”